Modern design wood stock for long range rifle?

[Rifleman97]

I'm a woodworker by profession, I've got access through my work to just about any tool you can imagine for woodworking. I've decided I want to make a stock similar-ish to the manners EH1A. Fully adjustable wood stock, and I want to put mercury recoil tubes in it to counter balance and reduce recoil for the heavy magnum it'll eventually be used on. This is a long term project as I can't afford a whole gun build at the moment, but I do have plenty of wood to choose from.

Questions:

1. Does anyone know where I can find a good 3D model of a Remington 700 inlet? If I can find one I can potentially cut the inlet with a CNC.

2. What wood species should I use? I don't have any French walnut or anything but I have some highly figured walnut, maple, or what I was thinking… Katalox heartwood for a gorgeous dark purple (Katalox cutting board I made pictured below) which extremely heavy but more durable than anything else you could reasonably buy.

3. Make the stock for my length of pull? Or make it short and have adjustable length of pull in case I ever decide to sell it?

4. Where would I find good hardware for the adjustment mechanisms in the stock?

I was inspired by the turnbull AR-15 and AR-10's with the really nice wood stocks.

 

[HSmithTX]

You can model the inlet in maybe 30-40 minutes with a caliper and some pins to measure radii if you have the software and know how to use it. I would 100% CNC the inlet if you can.

Maple and walnut are readily available, https://allenmartinrifles.com/ has wood from straight grain to WOW, https://scottgunstocks.com/inventory/ and Ron has OMG wood for sale.

I would make LOP adjustable.

Brownells is where I would start for hardware.

 

[DakotaFire101]

Walnut and maple are both great stock choices. I would advise getting boyds website and ordering a laminate blank to learn on. They're cheap and the lamination layers add an easy visual aid to make sure you are keeping everything STRAIGHT! That is the most important thing in building a rifle stock. If the butt stock is canted a hair the gun will not behave nicely under recoil. The first stock i ever built went on a beautiful 300 win mag that every time I shot from the prone would jump 3 inches to the left even with a muzzle brake. My recoil pad was not square. Hardware for adjustable cheeks and LOP are out there online. I can't remember exactly where but a quick google search will net you what you need. I've never used a cnc mill to inlet a stock. I ground a 1.375" drill bit to a ball nose and to a 1.350 radius to match the OD of a remington 700 action. The mag well and trigger pocket are all roughed out using an end mill as well as the barrel channel and then everything is finished by hand. I go by something that my stocks instructor told me when I was at CST. "spend 20 percent of your time taking off 80 percent of the excess wood, then 80 percent of your time taking off the remaining 20 percent. Aluminum bedding blocks are available through whidden gunworks and they work great although I've gone to making my own. If you need any help give me a shout.

 

[Rifleman97]

You can model the inlet in maybe 30-40 minutes with a caliper and some pins to measure radii if you have the software and know how to use it. I would 100% CNC the inlet if you can.

Maple and walnut are readily available, https://allenmartinrifles.com/ has wood from straight grain to WOW, https://scottgunstocks.com/inventory/ and Ron has OMG wood for sale.

I would make LOP adjustable.

Brownells is where I would start for hardware.

Good to know on hardware.

I have plenty of dried lumber of high figure already, but I think Katalox would be really neat. I have some more lumber from the same tree I made that cutting board out of. Being harder and denser than ebony it'll be really heavy, similar to some of the chassis rifles. It's 66 pounds per cubic foot, vs 35-45 lbs on walnut. Almost impossible to meaningfully dent with a janka hardness of 3660, vs walnut at a measly 1010.

I also have some African gaboon ebony I can do some fun inlays with if I do choose, or make the cheek piece out of for its lovely feel.

I'm not currently paying for solidworks but I'm really experienced with that (took several semesters of college on solidworks alone lol). Might try and find a good free or cheap alternative to model out the inlet for the cnc.

 

[Rifleman97]

Walnut and maple are both great stock choices. I would advise getting boyds website and ordering a laminate blank to learn on. They're cheap and the lamination layers add an easy visual aid to make sure you are keeping everything STRAIGHT! That is the most important thing in building a rifle stock. If the butt stock is canted a hair the gun will not behave nicely under recoil. The first stock i ever built went on a beautiful 300 win mag that every time I shot from the prone would jump 3 inches to the left even with a muzzle brake. My recoil pad was not square. Hardware for adjustable cheeks and LOP are out there online. I can't remember exactly where but a quick google search will net you what you need. I've never used a cnc mill to inlet a stock. I ground a 1.375" drill bit to a ball nose and to a 1.350 radius to match the OD of a remington 700 action. The mag well and trigger pocket are all roughed out using an end mill as well as the barrel channel and then everything is finished by hand. I go by something that my stocks instructor told me when I was at CST. "spend 20 percent of your time taking off 80 percent of the excess wood, then 80 percent of your time taking off the remaining 20 percent. Aluminum bedding blocks are available through whidden gunworks and they work great although I've gone to making my own. If you need any help give me a shout.

Good advice. The primary woodworking I do is on pianos where I have to get some measurements precise down to 3/1000ths of an inch, so I'm well aware of the 20/80 rule.

I've never done checkering before, not sure if I want to be lazy and try pressing it or if I want to use some scraps and practice it. Out of all the woodworking niche skills checkering has the most respect from me. I have several checkering files as we use them on pianos, on the backs of hammers to gain extra grip on the "checking" (when the hammer is held down after the note is played preventing it from bouncing back up and repeating a strike on the string) however the way we use it it doesn't need to be precise nor pretty.

 

[HSmithTX]

That Katalox sounds like it would make a really good stock as long as it isn't brittle, the hardness and weight is crazy!! WAY more dense and hard than anything I have worked with. I complain about hard Claro lol. Wood stocks take a heavy shear load on the lug inlet and typically there isn't a ton of wood between the lug and magazine well. I would definitely put an ebony grip cap and forend tip on, a nod to the way classy stocks were made for a LONG time and I think it would look amazing. I would also put an ivory-ish looking fine line spacer between both pieces of ebony. Side question, how hard is that wood on tools like chisels? Seems like it would be brutal but being that hard it should be easy to get super clean detail.

What software or what file types will your CAM software accept? I'll bet you could program with say a quarter inch endmill and then machine with a 3/16 and get a nicely undersized inlet in deep parts of the action inlet that would hand finish to perfection. The wood looks dark enough you could use china white to inlet. The black or blue most people use would be really hard to see. If you are going to bed it anyway I'd just blast out a generous inlet and use pillars to final locate the action for bedding.

Checkering isn't too hard if you practice, and keep your layout relatively simple until you have a bit more experience. It is exactly as tedious as it looks like it would be but if you are doing piano work you will pick it up quick. Finer lines are shallower and go faster but a bit harder to cover any mistakes you might make. I left the stock over by about 1/8 and checkered to make sure I could do what I wanted to do, it would look good and function well, and get some practice. Then I rasped it off and final shaped and did it again. I tend to do that on a lot of things the first time or two when I am not sure how it will come out.

 

[dfanonymous]

I would be concerned about the stability of wood. I mean typical wood movement. Especially if it was a field gun and not just a range gun.

Also I would think some type of pillaring would be desirable for torque tuning the action, as well as some type of metal for contact with a recoil lug.


But I'm not a wood expert. Just stuff I'd be concerned about.

 

[milestown]

Over on accurateshooter.com there is a very good write up on a guy making stocks.
I think it was on th same site a guy was printing some copies of actions to use in molds.

Hal

 

[DakotaFire101]

Good advice. The primary woodworking I do is on pianos where I have to get some measurements precise down to 3/1000ths of an inch, so I'm well aware of the 20/80 rule.

I've never done checkering before, not sure if I want to be lazy and try pressing it or if I want to use some scraps and practice it. Out of all the woodworking niche skills checkering has the most respect from me. I have several checkering files as we use them on pianos, on the backs of hammers to gain extra grip on the "checking" (when the hammer is held down after the note is played preventing it from bouncing back up and repeating a strike on the string) however the way we use it it doesn't need to be precise nor pretty.

Oh hell yeah then you already have the attention to detail needed and it sounds like all the fine woodworking tools one could need. Checkering is a very tough skill to get right. Easy enough to do on flat surfaces but keeping your lines straight on the round surfaces commonly associated with gun stocks is an entirely different animal. I don't do a ton of it anymore, I've gone to a more modern "stippling" look that I do with a rotary burr. Admittedly it's because I'm lazy by the time I get to adding texture to the grip I just want to put the gun together and shoot the **** thing! I do like the blend of wood with more modern rifle stock designs. I'm currently working on a gunwerks clymr style stock out of a laminate blank.

 

[Rifleman97]

That Katalox sounds like it would make a really good stock as long as it isn't brittle, the hardness and weight is crazy!! WAY more dense and hard than anything I have worked with. I complain about hard Claro lol. Wood stocks take a heavy shear load on the lug inlet and typically there isn't a ton of wood between the lug and magazine well. I would definitely put an ebony grip cap and forend tip on, a nod to the way classy stocks were made for a LONG time and I think it would look amazing. I would also put an ivory-ish looking fine line spacer between both pieces of ebony. Side question, how hard is that wood on tools like chisels? Seems like it would be brutal but being that hard it should be easy to get super clean detail.

What software or what file types will your CAM software accept? I'll bet you could program with say a quarter inch endmill and then machine with a 3/16 and get a nicely undersized inlet in deep parts of the action inlet that would hand finish to perfection. The wood looks dark enough you could use china white to inlet. The black or blue most people use would be really hard to see. If you are going to bed it anyway I'd just blast out a generous inlet and use pillars to final locate the action for bedding.

Checkering isn't too hard if you practice, and keep your layout relatively simple until you have a bit more experience. It is exactly as tedious as it looks like it would be but if you are doing piano work you will pick it up quick. Finer lines are shallower and go faster but a bit harder to cover any mistakes you might make. I left the stock over by about 1/8 and checkered to make sure I could do what I wanted to do, it would look good and function well, and get some practice. Then I rasped it off and final shaped and did it again. I tend to do that on a lot of things the first time or two when I am not sure how it will come out.

I've made a good amount of projects with Katalox, it's brutal on chisel and hand plane blades but as long as you go with the grain for the most part it's pretty compliant. Takes way more effort though, like trying to plane concrete. But I have several forms of power sharpening so it doesn't really bother me as it doesn't take long to get back to sharp. Benefits of a professional level wood shop vs at home with sandpaper and a piece of granite, or 2-3 whetstones and a piece of leather with compound on it.

It very much not brittle in my experience. **** near indestructible as long as you don't use a piece from the pith.

As for wood movement as mentioned in other comments; in my experience the more dense the wood, the slower it moves. Not that it doesn't move, but if you keep it in climate controlled environment for most of the year and then take it out for a week during the day, it'll barely move during that week. Any longer than that and you'd notice/measure movement, but it's not like red oak, yellow pine, etc which moves within a day of being put in the new environment.

I would be pillar or epoxy/glass bedding the rifle action, haven't decided which yet. Pillar is probably better but challenging to fit in this hard of wood. Epoxy bedding is brain dead easy. Wood only moves along edge and face grain, it does not move along the length of the wood, so it shouldn't affect action fitment as long as there is side tolerance for shrinking and expanding of the wood. Barrel will be heavily floated, so no worries of wood movement there.